


If Only Life Would Lean Our Way

by jessikast



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Andy regain immortality, Fix-It, Gen, Hugs, Immortal Husbands Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova, M/M, POV Nicky | Nicolò di Genova, Post-Canon, Post-Canon Fix-It, Sniper!Nicky, Team Feels, highly inaccurate medical stuff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-24
Updated: 2020-07-24
Packaged: 2021-03-05 00:07:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,227
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25485172
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jessikast/pseuds/jessikast
Summary: Nicky has a good day. He has the opportunity to take out Dr Kozak, who caused such pain for him and his love. Then, some documents from Merrick's testing reveal something surprising - and entirely welcome - about Andy's health.
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 38
Kudos: 540





	If Only Life Would Lean Our Way

**Author's Note:**

> Un-beta'd.  
> Title from "Love, Love, Love" by Avalanche City, which I heard on the radio the other day and just thought "yep, there's some fic titles in that."

Nicky didn’t consider himself a particularly vindictive man – at least not outside of the heat of a fight – but he found himself grimly pleased at the role he had in cleaning up the Merrick mess. While Copley and Nile (who had a talent for seeing patterns, the bigger picture – and, more relevantly, could touch type and navigate systems with an intuitive ease that even Booker had lacked) went after digital files, the others had their own tasks.

Andy and Joe were tidying up the staff. Of course, pretty much all the security team – the small private army – were very, very dead, but there were some guards who knew, dangerously, exactly _what_ they’d been guarding and why they shouldn’t relax their watch around seemingly permanently incapacitated prisoners. Those people needed to be quietly removed; same for some of the medical team. Those who had simply processed samples by rote were left to find new employment. It was necessary after the large fire which had decimated the Merrick building, destroying labs, samples and records. _Such_ a shame.

Nicky’s task was Dr Kozak. He could, perhaps, have forgiven pure scientific curiosity. But no one who had taken the Hippocratic oath should have been so ruthlessly immoral in taking samples – bad enough from himself, but he’d watched dead or unconscious Joe being sliced and probed and dissected. _That_ was unforgivable.

Worst – and the thing that meant that Nicky was settling into his task with a savage joy – was the way she’d looked at Joe after Merrick had stabbed him. She had been fucking _gleeful_ , watching his love’s blood and injuries with avarice.

Nicky chose a vantage point outside and above one of the Merrick satellite offices, where the good doctor had relocated until her main labs could be rebuilt. It was on the outskirts of the city, in an industrial park with more empty buildings than tenants – perfect. He was close enough that he could have used his sniper rifle without a laser sight. _Could_ have. But then he would have been depriving the doctor of the opportunity to see her death coming – given that she had slowly and carefully caused his own and Joe’s deaths enough times, how could that be fair?

So, Nicky settled in, waited til she paused by her car to pull out her keys, took aim – then turned on the laser. He watched her puzzlement at the red light that appeared on her chest, then the realisation, the panic, the frantic glance upwards towards him…

He gave her a second to start to plead, to reach out in fruitless supplication, then he exhaled, paused, and pulled the trigger.

It was a clean shot, straight to the heart. _Nicky_ wasn’t a fucking torturer. He left her there for the crows.

Nicky arrived back to find Copley’s house bustling. Copley looked around, occasionally, puzzled but not unhappy about it, from his desk. Nicky suspected the man had become used silence in his home, the hush of caring for a terminal wife, then the deafening quiet after she died. Andy was in the kitchen, making a sandwich, hair combed back wet and skin still damp from a shower. Nile was lying with her feet up on the sofa, a laptop balanced on her stomach, one headphone in and a thin sound of music piping out of the other so she could still talk to them all. Overall, there was a sense of productive purpose – enough to mask the space where Booker should have been.

“Joe’s in the shower,” Andy said around a mouthful of bread.

“Grazie,” Nicky replied, dumping his rifle case and not bothering to knock on the bathroom door, already stripping off his shirt as he walked in. Joe was already in the cubicle, water running pink past his feet. He opened the glass door and wiped the water off his face and dripping beard, smiling at Nicky.

“All done?” he asked.

“Yes,” said Nicky. “And you?”

Joe shifted back to make room for Nicky. Not that Nicky’s day had left him in need of a shower like Joe’s fight had, but he still wanted the mental distance that came from being clean after a mission. Besides, hot showers were a marvellous invention, and he took every opportunity to appreciate them – particularly when they had such a generous hot water supply as Copley’s home. “I think we have them all,” said Joe. “Copley is reviewing the personnel files to be sure.”

Nicky hummed in satisfaction, and set to washing Joe’s hair for him. It was as relaxing for him to do as it was for Joe, and he enjoyed the little sounds of relaxed satisfaction Joe couldn’t help making, the huff of laughter when Nicky seriously conditioned his beard as thoroughly as he had his hair, the easy way Joe leaned against him when Nicky crowded close under the spray as if they were in a far smaller shower.

They tested the limits of Copley’s hot water supply and emerged pink and glowing. Nicky followed Joe back into the living room and ran into the back of Joe when he stopped abruptly. Nicky understood why – the energetic room he’d left was tense and quiet, Copley and Andy both staring at Nile.

“Are you quite sure?” Copley said, moving to look over Nile’s shoulder at her laptop. Andy was frozen, but Nicky could see her breathing had quickened.

Nile turned the laptop screen for Copley to read and twisted to meet Nicky and Joe’s eyes. Her expression was a little lost, but there was a muted excitement there too. “I mean, I’m not a doctor, but these results seem pretty clear?”

“What’s going on, what’s happened?” Joe asked Andy, but she didn’t look away from Nile – from the laptop Nile held.

Copley answered, distracted as he scrolled through a document. “It’s some of the files we’re going through. This one is results from blood tests done on Andy – they must have processed them quickly. They _seem_ to indicate that she wasn’t very well.”

“Well, no shit,” said Joe. “Book- Some fucker had _shot_ her. I’d say that qualifies as ‘not well’.”

“Not like that,” said Nile. “Like – a disease. It looks like they just tested for everything across the board. It says here there are abnormalities in the white blood cell count, and low levels of platelets – ‘suggests diagnosis of leukaemia’.”

Nicky felt his heart skip a beat – a sensation he was unfortunately all too familiar with – and an odd buzzing at the back of his skull. He reached forward to grip Joe’s hand, needing to feel something familiar. Joe reached back, their fingers intertwined, and squeezed his hand tightly.

Nile wasn’t finished. “Booker told me, he said big wounds take longer to heal, right? So that means that there must be a…finite amount of healing that can be done at one time. What if…” she paused, looking nervously at Andy. “What would happen to our bodies’ ability to heal wounds if all the…capacity was diverted to something else for a while? Different priorities?”

Copley was reading and nodding. “It…it makes sense. I mean, this isn’t any kind of _definitive_ diagnosis, we’d need to refer these test result – anonymously of course – to a specialist, but- Andy?”

Andy had stood abruptly, looking panicked, hands flexing like she was regretting the lack of an axe in them. She turned, like she wanted to leave, but just stepped into the corner of the room that Copley had wallpapered with old photos and documents, hiding her face in her hands in the corner and taking a few deep breaths. Nicky could hear the shakiness she was trying to hide and caught Joe’s eye, motioning with his head toward Andy. Joe nodded, and went to stand next to Andy, not crowding her, but putting a hand on her shoulder and murmuring in Arabic, the language more liquid and soothing in his mouth than any other tongue.

Nicky quietly flapped his hand toward the door, mouthing _give us a minute_. Copley nodded and Nile gave him a thumbs up, and they moved out, leaving Andy to Joe and Nicky. This was right – Copley seemed decent, in an ‘on probation with a LOT to make up for’ kind of way, and Nile was a lovely child, bright and full of potential, but _so_ young. This – whatever it was – was a matter for people with history. Nicky joined Joe and Andy, standing behind Joe and hooking his chin over his love’s shoulder.

Andy’s lips were pressed together so tightly they were bloodless, and her eyes were screwed shut. “I have to…I can’t wait not knowing.” Without looking up she held out her hand, palm and forearm up. Nicky patted his pockets, then Joe’s, but out of the shower and in soft trackpants and t-shirts they weren’t armed. Joe turned just enough to meet Nicky’s eye and raised an eyebrow. Nicky shrugged – nothing else for it, and Andy clearly needed _something_ – and watched as Joe reached forward, wrapped his hand around Andy’s forearm and dug his fingernails into the thin skin of her inner wrist. Andy made a muffled sound and her arm twitched a little in reflex, but she didn’t pull it away.

Joe pressed until his nails drew blood, four little half-moons on the pale skin. Andy didn’t look up. “Well?” she asked. Nicky reached up and used one thumb to rub over the wounds, and stuck his thumb in his mouth to suck off the blood. (Joe twitched against him. Yeah, it was a _thing_.) They both looked at the unblemished skin under the remaining smudge of blood. Nicky didn’t think they made a sound, but Andy must have heard something in their breathing, because with a gasp she opened her eyes and held her forearm before her, fingers of her other hand running over the skin.

“I…I don’t…” she started.

“Andy…” said Nicky, gently. Inside he was elated, joy fizzing in his belly, the tense misery he had tried to swallow down as he mourned his friend who was still alive being washed away in relief that made him weak-kneed. He knew Joe felt the same, could feel a supressed tremor in the other man’s body. Andy, however, seemed lost; her mouth trembled into something like a smile, but her eyes were stricken. For a moment Nicky thought about giving her space – then he remembered that he and Joe were here _because_ , out of all the people in the world, they were the ones who had earned the ability to see Andy’s weaknesses, to watch her throw her head back in delighted laughter or comfort her in her grief. He squeezed Joe’s hip, then stepped around to wrap Andy in a bear hug from behind, sandwiching her between him and Joe.

The three of them stood quietly for many minutes, while their respective emotions reached equilibrium. Finally, Andy drew in a deep breath. “I need a drink,” she announced.

When Nile and Copley cautiously peered in a little later, all three were at the relaxed stage of tipsy, slouched on a sofa together with Andy in the middle. Nicky and Joe had their arms along the top of the sofa, resting behind Andy’s neck and allowing their hands to rest along the other’s forearm. Andy tilted her glass at Nile and Copley and Nicky leaned forward to pour some more of Copley’s very nice whiskey into two more glasses, spilling it _just_ a little.

“Soooo,” started Nile. “Is this a celebratory drink? Or are we commiserating? Or….”

Andy chuckled. Nicky suspected it would have been mirthless, but the alcohol was working its magic on her nerves and it wasn’t a bitter sound. “I’m still not sure.”

Nile looked confused. “Wait, I thought you would have…tested it somehow. _Are_ you still mortal?”

Joe rolled his head to look at Andy, quiet happiness in his eyes. “It seems boss is going to be with us a while longer.”

Nile gasped in delight, clapping her hand over her mouth. Copley breathed a sigh of relief. “Oh, thank god.”

“Thank _God_ ,” echoed Nile, sincerely.

Andy took another drink and looked at the ceiling. “Did you ever do that thing where you toss a coin? And then when it’s still falling you realise what way you want it to land?” Nicky murmured something vaguely agreeable. “That’s…that what this feels like. I thought I knew what I wanted. Not enough to seek it, like Booker-“ she paused a moment, frowning and mouth turning down. “-But I had thought I was _so_ tired, I just wanted to…stop.”

“But…that’s not what you still want?” asked Nile, cautiously.

“I found a…second wind.” Andy lowered her chin to look at Nile. “I guess I was reminded that there are still things to find joy in. Still things I want to see through.”

“Oh,” said Nile, quietly. She looked happy.

Nicky felt Joe’s fingers stretch so they could rest against the side of his neck, and he tilted his head back to look at Joe. They smiled at each other, lost in each other a little as the energy of the others picked up a little, Andy allowing herself to be pulled into Nile’s infectious happiness.

It had been, thought Nicky, a good day. And there were going to be many more of them.

**Author's Note:**

> I just really wanted a) Nicky to kill Dr Kozak (because she gets knocked out in the film but I don't think it's explicit that she's killed?) and b) to write my bonkers "Andy's fine, really!" theory.
> 
> On the one hand, Andy's mortality is both heartbreaking and fantastic storytelling for the character. A fix-it can only cheapen some beautiful character moments. 
> 
> On the other hand, I want our favourite immortal axe mom to hang out with the others FOREVER.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Drown for me, Baby (please wake up)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26486440) by [lilolilyrae](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lilolilyrae/pseuds/lilolilyrae)




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